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He was born August 18 in 1970. After graduating from Hokkaido Sapporo North high school, he entered Hokkaido University. He belonged to the judo club and won the shichitei judo championship when he was in fourth grade. In 1992, he was scouted by Satoru Sayama, who trained him in shoot wrestling at the Super Tiger Gym, and Nakai made his debut in Shooto the same year. His deep knowledge of groundfighting granted him a distinguished career in Shooto, where he defeated Kazuhiro Kusayanagi for the Shooto Welterwight Championship.

In 1995, as the current champion, Nakai was selected by the Shooto Commission to represent Shooto in the Vale Tudo tournament Vale Tudo Japan 1995, hosted by Sayama. His first opponent was Gerard Gordeau, a DutchSavate fighter. Nakai started the fight dropping down and scissoring Gordeau's leg to avoid his kicks and work a leglock, but Gerard illegally eye-gouged him from that position and tried to kick him out the ring. A bloodied Nakai later took Gordeau down in the corner and secured a heel hook to make him tap. Despite his right eye was gravely injuried and he had lost half of his eyesight, Nakai advanced in the tournament and was pitted against American wrestler and WCW performer Craig Pittman, who sported a 100-lb weight advantage. The bigger wrestler took him down and performed ground and pound while Nakai attempted to avoid it by turtling up, albeit almost catching him in an armbar. After enduring more punishment, Nakai performed another armbar from his guard and made him tap out. Now with both of his eyes completely swelled and almost blind, Yuki would face Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu master Rickson Gracie at the third and final bout. Nakai resisted Rickson's earlier attempts to pass his guard, but he was too lacerated to keep his defense and Gracie took the mount, landing some punches before catching Yuki in a rear naked choke, thus winning the tournament.

Yuki Nakai became permanently blind in his right eye due to Gerard Gordeau's illegal tactics.[1] For years he and Sayama kept his blindness a secret to protect the reputation of mixed martial arts. The injury forced Nakai to retire from mixed martial arts competition. Despite many believing the Vale Tudo match with Rickson Gracie led him to start practicing Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, it was actually after witnessing Noboru Asahi's loss to Royler Gracie in 1996 that he took up the art, where he became the first person from Japan to hold a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and is the president of the Japanese Confederation of Jiu-Jitsu.